THOUGHTS ON 1/1/11 by John M. Floyd A question for our readers: How are you on new year’s resolutions? Do you come up with things each January 1st that you feel you can accomplish or improve during the next twelve months? More importantly, do you fulfill those resolutions? Personally, I’m good at making them and […]

COMFORT AND JOY by John M. Floyd A few days ago I attended what used to be an annual event for our extended family: a Christmas gathering at the home of one of our nearby cousins. In the recent past this event has unfortunately not been so annual; we sometimes go for several years at […]

STEP INTO MY LABORATORY by John M. Floyd Recently several of us at Criminal Brief have done briefs about our own workspaces and home offices. What I’d like to do this week is take that a bit further, and cover what’s in my little writer’s retreat (besides me, that is). The following is a partial […]

BACK TO (AND FROM) THE FUTURE by John M. Floyd I’ve always enjoyed reading traditional fiction. To me, “traditional” means that an interesting character leaves his routine world to face a problem that becomes steadily more complicated until he finds a way to solve it. A simple structure, start to finish: beginning, middle, end. And […]

SIGNING BONUS by John M. Floyd As any writer can tell you, a book signing event is a unique experience. It always holds the possibility of being either a raging success or a dismal failure, and of course usually falls somewhere between those extremes. But beyond the effort and the salesmanship and the “mechanics” of […]

UNORIGINAL SINS by John M. Floyd All of us, whether we’re writers or not, have pet peeves. One of mine is clichés. Or at least certain clichés. Why do they bother me so? Think of it this way . . . One of my favorite TV commercials of the past several years features a guy standing in […]

OH WHAT A TANGLED WEB by John M. Floyd A few weeks ago JLW mentioned that one his stories and one of mine in AHMM last year were recently named by Otto Penzler as “Other Distinguished Mystery Stories of 2009” (an addendum to the Best American Mystery Stories 2010 anthology, edited by Lee Child). It’s […]